Governor Leigh Pemberton’s 1992 lecture concluded with a message for the LSE: “in a world of price
stability you might not think of inviting the Governor of the Bank of England to address you”. Had price
stability guaranteed financial stability, and had I achieved my long-held ambition of being boring, that might
have been true.
Unfortunately, it is not how things have worked out!
What I have tried to show tonight is that the case for price stability is as strong today as it was twenty years
ago – both in theory and in practice. The clarity and simplicity of the inflation target helps to anchor inflation
expectations on the target. We forget the lessons of the 1970s and 1980s at our peril. In the end, the
essence of central banking is to maintain confidence in, and the value of, paper money.
It is far too soon to bury inflation targeting. Together with central bank independence, it played a key role in
bringing price stability to the UK. As the Times reported 20 years ago, “the pound's firmer tone, and softer
German money market rates, could tempt the Chancellor to shave half a point off base rates to coincide with
the Prime Minister's speech at Brighton today”. The party conference season is no longer a time for
speculation about changes in interest rates. No doubt we shall learn a great deal about the appropriate
allocation of responsibilities to monetary policy, on the one hand, and macro-prudential policy, on the other,
Governor Leigh Pemberton’s 1992 lecture concluded with a message for the LSE: “in a world of price
stability you might not think of inviting the Governor of the Bank of England to address you”. Had price
stability guaranteed financial stability, and had I achieved my long-held ambition of being boring, that might
have been true.
Unfortunately, it is not how things have worked out!
What I have tried to show tonight is that the case for price stability is as strong today as it was twenty years
ago – both in theory and in practice. The clarity and simplicity of the inflation target helps to anchor inflation
expectations on the target. We forget the lessons of the 1970s and 1980s at our peril. In the end, the
essence of central banking is to maintain confidence in, and the value of, paper money.
It is far too soon to bury inflation targeting. Together with central bank independence, it played a key role in
bringing price stability to the UK. As the Times reported 20 years ago, “the pound's firmer tone, and softer
German money market rates, could tempt the Chancellor to shave half a point off base rates to coincide with
the Prime Minister's speech at Brighton today”. The party conference season is no longer a time for
speculation about changes in interest rates. No doubt we shall learn a great deal about the appropriate
allocation of responsibilities to monetary policy, on the one hand, and macro-prudential policy, on the other,
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